Miami Herald - Tuesday, April 24, 1984
Steve Sternberg, Herald Medical Writer

Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler termed the find "a breakthrough" that could lead to a commercially available test for AIDS -- and possibly an anti-AIDS vaccine.

Four days ago, French researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris announced a discovery that may be similar, and American scientists soon will travel there to determine, in fact, whether it is the same virus.

The American team said their discovery may lead to a vaccine against AIDS. "We hope to have such a vaccine ready for testing in about two years," Heckler said.

AIDS, first identified in 1981, is a disease that destroys the body's immunity by killing white blood cells, which fight infection.

Unfortunately, said Dr. Edward Brandt, assistant secretary of health, the newest findings may not immediately benefit those in greatest need of help -- the nation's 4,000 AIDS patients. "It will be two years before we can begin human trials of a vaccine and another year before it can be mass produced," Brandt said.

He also conceded that the vaccine is a preventive measure that cannot help those who are already sick with AIDS.

Slightly more than 1,700 people have died of AIDS in this country since 1981.

A research team led by Dr. Robert Gallo, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., discovered evidence of the blood- borne virus, called human T-cell leukemia virus type III (HTLV-III).

Like any virus, Gallo said, the HTLV-III invades cells and takes over their reproductive machinery.

Unlike other leukemia viruses, which invade white blood cells and cause cancer, HTLV-III apparently kills those cells, destroying a critical part of the body's defense against disease.

Once the virus has killed the white blood cells, it cannot be detected, and that is why it has taken such intense research to track it down. The Gallo team concentrated on finding the invaders "fingerprints" -- the antibodies the body creates to ward off the virus.

He said 90 percent of AIDS victims have antibodies to the rare HTLV-III virus, and the new test will look specifically for them.

The antibodies also are found in 80 percent of people with a condition called pre-AIDS -- in which the symptoms of AIDS are present, but not any of the opportunistic infections typical of the disease.

In heterosexuals, HTLV-III antibodies are found in fewer than 1 percent, Gallo said.

Gallo conceded that the virus has not yet passed the classic test of a disease-causing agent -- infecting an experimental animal. The virus has been injected into animals, but it is too soon to know whether they will develop AIDS, he said.

The promise of a commercially available blood test that can potentially eliminate AIDS from the nation's blood supply generated widespread excitement among health officials and researchers.

"With the blood test we can now identify AIDS victims with essentially 100 percent certainty," Heckler said. "We should be able to prevent transfusion-related AIDS cases, as well as those which might appear in hemophiliacs."

Test available soon

Brandt said the test might be available commercially to the nation's 1,700 blood banks within six months. The federal government applied for a patent on Monday.

Dr. Roger Dodd, an AIDS expert for the American Red Cross, said a Monday morning briefing on the subject by federal officials was "good news indeed."

Dr. Peter Tomasulo, director of the South Florida Blood Service, was more skeptical. "I'm hoping that it is as good as it sounds. I'll have to look at these studies before I can talk with confidence."

Approximately 45 cases of transfusion-related AIDS cases have been logged nationwide, with possibly six in Florida. There are 28 cases among hemophiliacs nationwide with two in Florida.

As of April 2 in Florida exactly 137 of the state's 274 AIDS patients were alive and 137 were dead, according to Gus Sermos, a CDC epidemiologist based in Miami.

Most patients are homosexual or bisexual men, intravenous drug abusers, recent Haitian immigrants and hemophiliacs. AIDS is believed to be transmitted through semen, blood or blood products.

Health officials are unable to say why the disease afflicts Haitians, but research sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and CDC may provide some answers, Gallo said."It is clear that they have antibodies to this virus."

Week of statements

Monday's news conference culminates a week of conflicting and often contradictory statements leaked to the press about a potential cause of AIDS. Many government researchers, both from the National Cancer Institute and the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, previously had credited a team of French researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with the discovery.

Initial speculation led observers to believe that Monday's press conference had been called simply to clarify the apparent dispute, which portrayed the French group and the American researchers as rivals.

"What is happening here is about 20 percent science and 80 percent politics," said Harvard University health analyst Jay Winsten.

'There are institutional budgets at stake -- there is a Nobel prize at stake here," he said.

The federal government has spent $75 million on AIDS research since 1981, said Heckler. President Reagan has requested an additional $54 million for next fiscal year. About $12 million has been alloted to the CDC alone for AIDS research, said Dr. James O. Mason, head of the CDC.

One researcher who asked that his name be withheld speculated that the finding could be a perfect justification for an AIDS research budget cut.

Gallo's research appears in four research papers to be published in the May 4 issue of the journal Science. No immedidate announcment of the results had been planned until the widely conflicting accounts in the press prompted Heckler to call a news conference Monday, sources said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control announced Monday that in the first quarter of 1984, 880 new cases of AIDS were reported, the largest jump in any quarter since statistics began to be kept in 1981. The rate has jumped from reports of three or four new cases per day to 10 per day.

"We are continuing to see an overall increase in AIDS," said Dr. Harold Jaffe, an epidemiologist with the CDC. "The disease appears to be be continuing to spread."

CAPTION: PHOTO Margaret Heckler

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